Supporting Individual Expression

PODCAST BY SILVA LAUKKANEN In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Gretchen Pick, executive director of Young Dance in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region. Young Dance offers youth classes and performance opportunities, and started to include dance classes for children and adults with disabilities in 2010 after realizing nothing else was being […]

October 1, 2018  |  Read Article

Appreciating the Passing: An Interview with Don Hewitt

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT; PHOTOGRAPHS BY GREGORY BARTNING Don embodied the dance teacher archetype. He arrived early and prepared; he had given thought to what he wanted to say; he bestowed what he had to say with a measure of surety and kindness. He made me want to dance for him. […]

July 2, 2018  |  Read Article

Permeating Community with Professional-Level Dance

JOANIE GARCIA is one of the founders of Dark Sky Aerial, an aerial theater and performance art company in Flagstaff, Arizona. She describes her personal ambiguity toward the term “professional dancer,” and recognizes the more comprehensive role dance can play in a person’s life. Her responses are part of a […]

January 18, 2018  |  Read Article

A Life in Dance Education

PODCAST BY SILVA LAUKKANEN In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Nancy Bain, who has spent her life working in dance education. She shares some of her most unique teaching experiences, including addressing war with students through dance at a public elementary school for the arts. Nancy also discusses why […]

September 28, 2017  |  Read Article

A Living Tradition: Jayanthi Raman

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT; PHOTOGRAPHS BY GREGORY BARTNING Not quite 50, our youngest dancer explained she knew few others, even in India, dancing this particular form of Indian classical dance at her age. As the sun rose above the trees behind her, the colorful whirl of Jayanthi’s dance grew like a […]

September 20, 2017  |  Read Article